The Baltic by Michael North

Author:Michael North [North, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 9780674744103
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2015-04-06T18:30:00+00:00

[CHAPTER EIGHT]

Revolutions and New States

Focus on Riga

By the eve of World War I, the port city of Riga, which to that point had been shaped largely by a German middle class and foreign merchants, had become a multiethnic industrial metropolis with a population exceeding 500,000. This changed the settlement patterns and architectural look of the city considerably. The new railroad lines that connected Riga with its Russian hinterland invited industrialization. And the growing workforce had to be supplied with lodgings, food, drinking water, and energy. At the same time, industrialists and bankers clamored for villas to show off their importance. As a result of all this activity, between 1900 and 1914, numerous German-Baltic, Latvian, and Jewish architects created a self-contained Art Nouveau ensemble on the outskirts of the medieval old city. The revolution of 1905 marked a turning point, with Art Nouveau replacing the previously predominant eclecticism. In addition to the decorative style of architects such as Heinrich Scheel (1829–1909), Friedrich Scheffel, and Mikhail Eisenstein (1867–1921), the father of the pioneering Russian film director, Latvian architects such as Eižens Laube (1880–1967), Konstāntins Pēkšens (1859–1928), Jānis Alksnis (1869–1939), and Aleksandrs Vanags (1873–1919) worked in a specifically national variant of Art Nouveau that was greatly influenced by Finnish architects. This style included the use of local building materials and ethnographic decorations. One example is the meeting house of the Riga Latvian Society designed by Laube, which, despite its imposing size, is decorated with only a few paintings by the artist Jānis Rozentāls.1

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